Magnitude correlations in global seismicity

The debate on the earthquake magnitude correlations: a meta-analysis

Among the most important questions that await an answer in seismology, perhaps one is whether there is a correlation between the magnitudes of two successive seismic events. The answer to this question is considered of fundamental importance given the potential effect in forecasting models, such as Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence models. After a meta-analysis of 29 papers, we speculate that given the lack of studies carried out with realistic physical models and given the possible bias due to the lack of events recorded in the experimental seismic catalogs, important improvements are necessary on both fronts to be sure to provide a statistically relevant answer.

Natural Time Analysis of Global Seismicity

Natural time analysis enables the introduction of an order parameter for seismicity, which is just the variance of natural time χ, κ1=⟨χ2⟩−⟨χ⟩2. During the last years, there has been significant progress in the natural time analysis of seismicity. Milestones in this progress are the identification of clearly distiguishable minima of the fluctuations of the order parameter κ1 of seismicity both in the regional and global scale, the emergence of an interrelation between the time correlations of the earthquake (EQ) magnitude time series and these minima, and the introduction by Turcotte, Rundle and coworkers of EQ nowcasting. Here, we apply all these recent advances in the global seismicity by employing the Global Centroid Moment Tensor (GCMT) catalog. We show that the combination of the above three milestones may provide useful precursory information for the time of occurrence and epicenter location of strong EQs with M≥8.5 in GCMT. This can be achieved with high statistical significance (p-values of the order of 10−5), while the epicentral areas lie within a region covering only 4% of that investigated.

Order Parameter and Entropy of Seismicity in Natural Time before Major Earthquakes: Recent Results

A lot of work in geosciences has been completed during the last decade on the analysis in the new concept of time, termed natural time, introduced in 2001. The main advances are presented, including, among others, the following: First, the direct experimental verification of the interconnection between a Seismic Electric Signals (SES) activity and seismicity, i.e., the order parameter fluctuations of seismicity exhibit a clearly detectable minimum when an SES activity starts. These two phenomena are also linked closely in space. Second, the identification of the epicentral area and the occurrence time of an impending major earthquake (EQ) by means of the order parameter of seismicity and the entropy change of seismicity under time reversal as well as the extrema of their fluctuations. An indicative example is the M9 Tohoku EQ in Japan on 11 March 2011. Third, to answer the crucial question—when a magnitude 7 class EQ occurs—whether it is a foreshock or a mainshock. This can be answered by means of the key quantities already mentioned, i.e., the order parameter of seismicity and the entropy change of seismicity under time reversal along with their fluctuations. The explanation of the experimental findings identified before major EQs is given in a unified way on the basis of a physical model already proposed in the 1980s.

Similar Seismic Activities Analysis by Using Complex Networks Approach

Seismic activities show a space-time symmetry in some research. They have been recently studied using complex network theory. Earthquake network similarity is studied by us from seismic catalogs in the same region for a given period of time. In this paper, we first calculate the distance between feature vectors which represent the topological properties of different networks. A hierarchical clustering of earthquake networks in the same region is shown by using this method. It is found that similar networks are not the networks of adjacent years but those with decades time difference. To study the period of similar earthquake networks in the same region, we use wavelet analysis to obtain the possible periods at different time scales of the regions of the world, California and Japan. It is found that some of the possible periods are consistent with the results which have been already found by seismologists. The study of similar seismic activities from the perspective of the complex network will help seismologists to study the law of earthquake occurrence in a new way, which may provide possible research thinking for earthquake prediction.

The Relevance of Foreshocks in Earthquake Triggering: A Statistical Study

An increase of seismic activity is often observed before large earthquakes. Events responsible for this increase are usually named foreshock and their occurrence probably represents the most reliable precursory pattern. Many foreshocks statistical features can be interpreted in terms of the standard mainshock-to-aftershock triggering process and are recovered in the Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ETAS model. Here we present a statistical study of instrumental seismic catalogs from four different geographic regions. We focus on some common features of foreshocks in the four catalogs which cannot be reproduced by the ETAS model. In particular we find in instrumental catalogs a significantly larger number of foreshocks than the one predicted by the ETAS model. We show that this foreshock excess cannot be attributed to catalog incompleteness. We therefore propose a generalized formulation of the ETAS model, the ETAFS model, which explicitly includes foreshock occurrence. Statistical features of aftershocks and foreshocks in the ETAFS model are in very good agreement with instrumental results.

Micro-scale, mid-scale, and macro-scale in global seismicity identified by empirical mode decomposition and their multifractal characteristics

The magnitude time-series of the global seismicity is analyzed by the empirical mode decomposition giving rise to 14 intrinsic mode functions (IMF) and a trend. Using Hurst analysis one can identify three different sums of these IMFs and the trend which exhibit distinct multifractal behaviour and correspond to micro-, mid- and macro-scales. Their multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis reveals that the micro-scale time-series exhibits anticorrelated behaviour in contrast to the mid-scale one which is long-range correlated. Concerning the mid-scale one, in the range of 30 to 300 consecutive events the maximum entropy method power spectra indicates that it exhibits an 1/f^α behaviour with α close to 1/3 which is compatible with the long-range correlations identified by detrended fluctuation analysis during periods of stationary seismicity. The results have been also verified to hold regionally for the earthquakes in Japan and shed light on the significance of the mid-scale of 30 to 300 events in the natural time analysis of global (and regional) seismicity. It is shown that when using the mid-scale time-series only, we can obtain results similar to those obtained by the natural time analysis of global seismicity when focusing on the prediction of earthquakes with M ≥ 8.4.

Minima of the fluctuations of the order parameter of global seismicity

It has been recently shown [N. V. Sarlis, Phys. Rev. E 84, 022101 (2011) and N. V. Sarlis and S.-R. G. Christopoulos, Chaos 22, 023123 (2012)] that earthquakes of magnitude M greater or equal to 7 are globally correlated. Such correlations were identified by studying the variance κ1 of natural time which has been proposed as an order parameter for seismicity. Here, we study the fluctuations of this order parameter using the Global Centroid Moment Tensor catalog for a magnitude threshold Mthres = 5.0 and focus on its behavior before major earthquakes. Natural time analysis reveals that distinct minima of the fluctuations of the order parameter of seismicity appear within almost five and a half months on average before all major earthquakes of magnitude larger than 8.4. This phenomenon corroborates the recent finding [N. V. Sarlis et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110, 13734 (2013)] that similar minima of the seismicity order parameter fluctuations had preceded all major shallow earthquakes in Japan. Moreover, on the basis of these minima a statistically significant binary prediction method for earthquakes of magnitude larger than 8.4 with hit rate 100% and false alarm rate 6.67% is suggested.

Natural time analysis of the Centennial Earthquake Catalog

By using the most recent version (1900-2007) of the Centennial Earthquake Catalog, we examine the properties of the global seismicity. Natural time analysis reveals that the fluctuations of the order parameter κ(1) of seismicity exhibit for at least three orders of magnitude a characteristic feature similar to that of the order parameter for other equilibrium or non-equilibrium critical systems-including self-organized critical systems. Moreover, we find non-trivial magnitude correlations for earthquakes of magnitude greater than or equal to 7.